Sunday, August 21, 2016

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. - James 1:17

Lately the words blessings and blessed have been making the rounds in Christian circles like wildfire. I watched a video about Christian college students that made me die laughing because they used #blessed in every social media post. While it is definitely an overused word, and one I try to stay clear of, there are times when it is one of the only descriptors of a situation.

In my lifetime, there are situations I can look back on and see God's hand, His blessing on my life. He's protected me while in a car accident that could have easily taken my life, I grew up in a loving family in a country that lets me be whatever and whoever I want, a husband that is honestly my perfect match, a job I loved when I worked, etc. I could go on and on and on.

Those of course are the happy blessings.

Blessings that cause heartache are harder to call blessings. Going through something traumatic and heartbreaking just so that I would walk closer to Him, experiencing hurt in a specific way without knowing it could be even worse, etc.

Most of the time, blessings are deemed from things we wanted, desired, longed for, and can clearly see God giving you something you are desperately praying through.

But what about those times it just drops in your lap?

Things the world easily categorizes as a coincidence.

Do you go on with life or do you stop and realize that sometimes God just wants to give you a gift? To show you He knows what you need before you even ask. Something you hadn't even brought to Him yet because you weren't even ready yet to take the first step.

That happened to us a couple of weeks ago.

Our life is definitely crazy right now.

Kids start school tomorrow.

I'm pregnant with our 'surprise' baby and can go into labor any day now.

My car's in the shop getting fixed from getting rear-ended a few days ago.

Our rent house is empty and we were trying to get everything fixed so we could either sell or lease it again.

Then we get a random offer to buy it!

Seriously, it wasn't even on the market.
One day we received a letter in the mail asking about the house with a cash offer. Thinking this was too good to be true, we decided to chase the rabbit down the hole. We almost laughed about it wondering when the ball would drop and we would see the flaw. But it never came. Even after inspection and closing costs, it would still be a price above what we would have ever listed it for in the first place.

Two weeks after the offer and we closed on Friday!

I cannot even begin to explain how random this was. We have tried to sell this property before, to no avail, and yet it was like God said now was the time and just took care of it.

I say all of this not to brag or seem flippant, but because as I told a couple of people what happened, I found that our society was so quick to contribute this to dumb luck, a great selling market, or just randomness.

I can't get behind any of that.

I've seen God move mountains in my life and His timing is without a doubt always perfect. This entire situation was truly a blessing from Him. And it shocked me so much I wanted to shout from the rooftop how amazing His timing is. Of course I'm reminded of that with each hard kick I feel in my ribs or on my pelvis from a lanky baby He gifted to us, ready to come out.